This invention relates to an automatic answering telephone set which records a business message received from a communicating party and, when a predetermined operation is performed, reproduces the recorded business message, and more particularly to an automatic answering telephone set suitable for use when listening to a recorded business message is attempted from a remote place at which the automatic answering telephone set cannot directly be operated.
Conventionally, an automatic answering telephone set is available as a message storage apparatus for storing a message when a user cannot respond to a telephone call terminating thereat. The automatic answering telephone set allows a user to listen to a business message recorded therein from a remote place. Generally, when a user tries to listen to a business message recorded in the automatic answering telephone set from a remote place, the user will dial the automatic answering telephone set and then input, after the telephone call is terminated at the automatic answering telephone set, a password or the like to specify the user who has originated the telephone call. As a result, automatically or in response to a command inputted subsequently, the user can listen to a recorded business message.
However, in order to listen, on such an automatic answering telephone set as described above, to a recorded business message from a remote place using, for example, a portable telephone set, a personal handyphone set (PHS) or a like unit, a user must not only register a password in advance, but also perform a series of manual operations to input the stored password, which is cumbersome to the user. Further, there is the possibility that the password may be used intentionally by a third party to listen to a recorded business message, which is not desirable to the user.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic answering telephone set which eliminates cumbersome operations when a user tries to listen to a recorded business message from a remote place to improve the convenience for the user.
More particularly, the present invention provides an automatic answering telephone set wherein, when a call for listening to a recorded business message is terminated at the automatic answering telephone set from an originating party, if the telephone call is originated by a user of the automatic answering telephone set from a remote place in order to listen to a business message recorded in the automatic answering telephone set, then information of a telephone number or the like sent from a caller ID notification service is utilized in place of a necessary password so that password storing and inputting operations can be eliminated.
In order to attain the object described above, according to the present invention, there is provided an automatic answering telephone set which records a business message received from an originating party and reproduces, when a predetermined operation is performed, the recorded message, comprising setting means for setting identification information of a user of the automatic answering telephone set, storage means for storing the user identification information set by the setting means, means for detecting, upon termination of a call, originating party number notification information from a signal received from a line, and control means for discriminating whether or not the detected originating party number notification information coincides with the identification information stored in the storage means and reproducing, when coincidence is detected, a business message recorded in the automatic answering telephone set.
With the automatic answering telephone set, since user identification information such as a telephone number sent from a caller ID notification service is used in place of a password, password storing and inputting operations, which are conventionally performed when it is intended to listen to a recorded business message from a remote place, can be omitted. Or in other words, a user of the automatic answering telephone set can listen to a business message recorded in the automatic answering telephone set without the necessity for any cumbersome operation such as an operation for storing a password or an operation for inputting the stored password.
Further, since a password inputting operation and so forth can be omitted, the possibility that a third party may listen to a stored business message is eliminated. Consequently, privacy protection can be achieved.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like parts or elements are denoted by like reference characters.